As per Legal India magazine, a law degree is one of the easiest to obtain fraudulently

Why do lawyers represent people and causes which are on the wrong side of public opinion?” is a question that is asked quite often. The answer is that every person has a right to receive legal representation and also that a lawyer is not a judge. Justice demands that no person goes unrepresented. Thomas Erskine famously said “From the moment that any advocate can be permitted to say that he will or will not stand between the Crown and the subject arraigned in court where he daily sits to practice, from that moment the liberties of England are at an end.”

The questions that need to be asked should have less to do with why is x defending y and more to do with the quality and practices of most lawyers (including myself) out there to defend litigants. I will attempt to throw some light and and share some trivia in no particular order. First, per a report in Legally India, in 2014 there were 1200 law colleges in India. The quality of teaching at most of these colleges is miserable. Attendance requirements are rarely enforced. A law degree remains one of the easiest to obtain fraudulently, without ever having to attend even a single class.

Second, when these students graduate, they largely depend on the people already in the profession to train them. Since 2010, an open book bar exam is also being conducted. This exam, however, is quite easy to clear and in my opinion does very little to improve the quality of legal professionals. Most lawyers pay pennies to fresh graduates. In another article I wrote for a website called Legally India, I described the two reasons that are offered for this practice - paying no or very little money is a ‘custom’ and that law school does not train lawyers to practice in courts/draft pleadings.

They claim that they are, in fact, doing young lawyers a favour by ‘training’ them. How do most law graduates intending to practice in court get a job? More often than not they end up with a lawyer known to someone in the family. Class, caste, region are very important factors. Believe it or not, some courts have informal lawyer lobbies, constituted on the basis of region, language, religion, caste etc. Why is all this relevant? Because barriers to the entry and practice in a profession determine the quality of professionals. Third, there is more nepotism in the legal profession than there is in Buckingham Palace.

Per a report of the National Lawyers’ Campaign for Judicial Transparency and Reforms (NLC) published in Outlook Magazine in September 2016, nine out of 28 SC judges happened to be related to former judges, Chief Justices and in one case, even a Chief Minister. Per the same report, 88 out of 300 High Court judges surveyed were related to sitting or former judges or legal professionals. Does nepotism affect the quality of justice? Your guess is as good as mine. Fourth, it is generally believed that the best lawyers in the profession are designated as ‘senior advocates’ by a High Court or the Supreme Court.

These advocates wear a different gown signifying their special status. They usually command a hefty fee. They are supposed to deal with litigants via briefing counsels. I don’t know how prevalent this practice is but I have heard of quite a few ‘briefing counsels’ quoting a higher fee to the litigant than the one being charged by the senior advocate. For example, if the senior advocate’s fee is x, the briefing counsel will say it is x+5, hand over x to the senior advocate and pocket the rest. Many times these payments are made in cash.

However, some briefing lawyers also have unethical ‘arrangements’ with some senior advocates. Even if the payment is made by cheque, the senior lawyer is happy to share a part of the proceeds with the briefing counsel. Fifth, there is at least one bar association in every court. Elections are periodically held for the offices of this association- president, treasurer, etc. These associations are meant to act, inter-alia’ as representatives of the bar, with the bench. I know of at least a few states where prospective candidates throw parties in five-star hotels for the hundreds of lawyers enrolled in the association as members.

A tremendous amount of money is spent in printing posters and mass-SMS campaigns. Needless to state, I am not painting the entire profession or people with a broad brush. There are also plenty of stories of lawyers paying for their juniors’ weddings and health care. Many lawyers take up a great number of cases for free and take out time to mentor those who may even be working with someone else. There is, however, a lot that needs to change.

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